


The Noose

by CoelacanthKing



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Apocalypse, Flashbacks, Gen, Post-Apocalpse, Solitude, Survival, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4912750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoelacanthKing/pseuds/CoelacanthKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had been hanging from a rope his entire life. The only question was whether he'd let it choke him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Noose

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this three month-long endeavor comes somewhat from the A Perfect Circle song of the same name, but also because Max's demeanor reminds me of someone at the end of their rope, trying to get as far away from their troubles as they can before the rope tightens.

 

 

The hardwood floors were warm under his bare feet. They creaked with age, as did the whole house, but he didn’t have to hide the noise of his approach. There were no sounds or smells of breakfast this morning. Instead there came a clatter from the living room, the static of the radio accompanying them.

There was stuff spread out everywhere. Boxes, bags, clothes. His mother was in a frenzy, rummaging through every drawer of the bureau, picking out valuables and shoving them into the pockets of her pants. Her life savings, a wad of cash bound together with a single rubber band, was left forgotten on the kitchen table.

“Mum?”

She leapt at the sound of his voice. Her expression was one of shock, registering his presence as if she hadn’t known there was anyone else in the house.

“Max. Max, you need to pack up. Right now.”

He didn’t understand. He waited for her to explain, and when she didn’t, the voice on the radio clarified. The male reporter on the other end sounded like he was about to lose his cool.

 _“-along the roads. Police are helpless to stop the vandals who are radiating into rural Melbourne, and it looks as if the fires-_ “

His mum strode up to him and took his face in her hands, eyes wide with something Max could only comprehend as terror.

“Listen to me, Max. Go to your room and pack your clothes, only your clothes. Hurry.” She pulled away from him to go back to her rummaging, finally noticing the unattended cash and snatching it up.

Speeding back down the hall and into his bedroom, Max took his pack down from its hook and emptied it onto his bed, homework and polished stones and snack wrappers forgotten. Pants, shirts, and underwear were crammed in instead, and he had just enough room to fit a comic book before cinching the top and fastening the flap. In his haste he nearly forgot to put his shoes on.

Back in the living room the clutter had gotten even worse. Upon seeing him with his belongings in tow, Max’s mother handed him a stack of blankets tied together with a belt.

“The cellar. Hurry.”

His movement slightly hampered by the bulk, Max went to the back door and shoved it open with one foot, careful to count each step as he descended the porch and strode across the backyard. The early morning was warm, but mist hung close to the ground, and the sun’s rays were muted and muddled by a thick bank of clouds. Max would have stopped to admire the odd weather if the situation hadn’t been more pressing.

Just then, Max realized that he loved the country. He loved their rickety single-story house, he loved the seclusion, he loved the fact that the closest houses were at least three kilometers away down either stretch of the road. An owl hooted somewhere in the bush, and Max felt at peace, despite the looming danger.

Their cellar was out in the bush, a good trot away from the house. Max noted that the leaf litter that normally covered the thick wooden trap door had been moved aside, and the door itself was wide open, a steady breeze of chilled air oozing up out of the hole. He descended the stairs, noting how much was already stashed down here. Jugs of water, food. Kerosene to go with the lamps that hung from hooks in the dirt walls. He set the blankets down in a corner with his pack.

He was halfway back to the house when the screen door exploded outward, his mother practically leaping from the porch. She had a rucksack strapped to her shoulders and a bundle under each arm, most likely full of clothes and trinkets. Her eyes were wild as she bore down on Max, shoving a bundle into his arms and forcing him back.

“Run. Back, go back. Just run.”

Legs pumping as hard as they could, Max kept stride with her as they charged to the cellar. She all but kicked him down it, his elbows and knees catching on the rough steps. She was standing halfway out when he looked up, staring back to the house, a mixture of emotions playing across her face that he’d never seen before.

From the direction of the road came the sound of car engines. A cacophony of hoots and cheers started up, and his mother brought the door down on them just as Max heard a gun go off.

They didn’t risk turning on a lamp. Max’s eyes became accustomed to the dark, and he listened, detached, to the distant sounds of the looters going through their home. It didn’t feel real. Like he was watching a movie through someone else’s eyes, like it wasn’t them hunkered down in the cellar. Some other poor sods, not them. This couldn’t ever happen to them.

His mum, the woman who had told the church to bite it when they’d criticized her divorce, who only prayed when the situation called for it, unclipped the rosary from her belt. Max could feel her counting the beads, hear her say the words, down there in the dark. The barbaric yawping started up anew, the vandals hitting a peak in their fervor, and Max shivered at the unmistakable sound of their house catching fire with single, thunderous _fwump_.

\---

“You’re crazy. Mad. Off your rocker.”

He glanced at Goose, amused at the sight of his friend gaping at him, the stub of a cigarette smoldering between his lips.

“Why not?”

Goose leaned back like he’d just been slugged in the face, jaw going slack and cigarette sticking comically to his lower lip. “ _Whuh_ \- Why not? It’s the fucking _Bronze_ , Max! A guy’s whole reputation, gone! Down the tubes!”

“I don’t recall caring about what people think of me.” Max smirked, turning his attention back to the poster plastered on the wall of the general store. Both wards of the state, he and Goose had met at the charity house run by the church, a place for young people without parents or guardians. A self-proclaimed ‘chain smoking, tail chasing good-for-nothing’, Goose was an intelligent and opinionated ass, and he and Max were as thick as thieves.

The poster had been torn down and put back together more times than he could guess, the bold brass and black lettering shining from behind a glossy layer of tape. Beneath it, tacked to the wall, was a vertical plastic bin full of stapled paper packets, like the ones handed out in school. Enlistment papers. The poster’s message was clear, shiny propaganda. Or opportunity, however you wanted to look at it.

_Protect Australia! Protect Freedom! Join the Main Force Patrol!_

“You? Join the Bronze? You’re kidding, right? You’re actually considering this?”

Max shrugged, continuing to stare at the poster, fingering the tops of the stapled papers in the bin. “Better than what we have now. You get a job, a car. I’ve got good grades, I can get in.”

“Sure, but the church wants us to go to school. If you signed up and got rejected, where’d you stay?”

“I wouldn’t have to go to school. I’d be exempt.”

Crushing what was left of his cigarette between his fingers (a talent that always slightly unnerved Max), Goose sniffed. “…To hell with it. I’ll sign up if you will.”

“What about your reputation?”

“An opportunity to not go to school is a chance worth taking. Fuck my reputation.”

Fifteen minutes later the two teens were walking up the road to MFP headquarters, completed paperwork clenched in their fists. Once passing through the main gate, receiving pat-downs from a tired guard, and being pointed along by several people through the rubble-strewn hallways, they finally managed to find the enlistment desk. It was manned by a fat fellow who couldn’t seem to stop sweating, and who acted like he had better things to do than cater to a couple of charity cases, but alas. There they all were.

Goose’s papers were shuffled and skimmed through, with sections being stamped accordingly and boxes being checked off. Finally, with a final round of grumbles and huffs, a certificate was signed and stamped, passing from hand to hand. “Jim Goose, welcome to the Main Force Patrol.”

“Hell! That was easy!”

“Yeah, they’re letting everyone in these days. Damn shame that the bar’s set so low.” Max stepped up next, offering his paperwork. It took less than a second of analyzing before the man’s face contorted, like he had just tasted something sour. “What the hell is this?”

“My papers.”

“I know that, you little shit. But what the fuck kind of a name is ‘Rockatansky’?”

\---

He met Jess in a bar two years later. The beer was sub-par, but it was the only bar in twenty kilometers, and hell if they were driving that far either way in the dark. The town was called Portishead, and it boasted a single tree, a general store, the bar, and about twenty houses. Max knew that he and Goose were taking a risk walking inside, as these little towns didn’t care much for the MFP. But the folks here didn’t have to like them, or even take them in. They’d have a drink and sleep in the car on the side of the road.

The interior was dim and surprisingly smoky. A conglomeration of rough-looking men and waifish women loitered at wobbly tables, full and empty mugs fighting for space with cards and empty ashtrays. Every head, even those of the pickled drunks seated at the bar, turned to look at the two officers as they stepped inside. Friendly nods were given to all as Max and Goose ambled to the bar, filling in two spaces and tucking their sunglasses into their collars.

“Whatever you got, please.”

The bartender, a woman with a head of short hair, nodded and reached behind her for two clean glasses. But a man’s inebriated voice sounded out from the tables, gruff and belligerent, before she could even pour their drinks.

“Oi, Jess. You’re not gonna be serving Bronze here, right?”

“Sure I will, if they don’t plan on mooching.” Giving the men a look that was probably meant to be serious, but came across as slightly mischievous, she asked, “You planning on mooching, Bronze?”

“No, ma’am. We have creds.” Max silently added to Goose’s statement by pulling a small stack of bills from his pocket, smoothing them out on the table edge and placing them in front of her.

The sound of a chair scraping against the wooden floor forced the officers to turn around, confronting a full-bellied man who staggered towards them with an open bottle clenched in one fist.

“Ain’t right. Ain’t goddamn right.”

The woman, Jess, put her foot down immediately. “Creedy, sit your ass down or go home. You’re pickled and you’re out of cred.” Ignoring her, Creedy went on ahead and brought the edge of the bottle down on the corner of a table. The glass shattered, spraying, and the two women who were seated there shrieked and covered their eyes. He lunged, but Goose was lighter, faster, and had all of his wits about him. Creedy’s greasy neck was caught in the crook of Goose’s elbow, and he was clotheslined to the floor with a meaty thud, the back of his head hitting a chair leg and knocking him out cold. Goose disarmed him, muttering, as Max left his seat to console the frightened women and help clean up bits and pieces of bottle.

Jess’s voice was like a whip, and everyone stopped their muttering and staring to cower at her authority. “You two!” She pointed a finger at a pair of dazed men at a back table, no doubt Creedy’s mates. “Get him out of here! And that goes for anyone and everyone. If you got a problem with me serving the Bronze in my own bar, then leave!”

“Ma’am, that won’t be necessary,” Max assured. “We didn’t mean to cause a scene, you’d be losing business if you sent folks away.”

She sniffed. “I make everyone pay upfront. I ain’t losing any money tonight.”

The drunk was collected and hauled quickly out of the building, and a handful of people obeyed Jess and filed out the door, grumbling and spitting. The folks that remained went back to their drinking and cards, and a few even came up to the young officers and thanked them, doling out handshakes and pats on the back. When Max and Goose were finally able to return to their seats, their drinks, and Jess, were waiting for them.

“On the house tonight, boys.”

“We can pay, ma’am. You don’t-“

“Quit that! Do I look like a _ma’am_ to you, Bronze?”

Max felt heat begin to seep into his cheeks, an alien phenomenon that left him flustered and antsy. “Er, no ma’am, I-“

Goose hooted beside him, grinning like a cat with a canary in its mouth. “Ha! He’s tongue-tied!” He leaned across the bar conspiratorially, jabbing a thumb at Max. “You’re lucky, most days I have trouble making him peep!” The two laughed, and Max hid his embarrassment behind his glass, feeling the tops of his ears begin to go warm.

Jess left with two full pitchers and went to mingle with her patrons, soothing the ones who were still rattled and pouring drinks for the folks who wanted more, happily pocketing the cash they handed over. Every now and again she’d look back and smile at Max, and he was shocked to realize that he was doing an active part in looking. He’d turn back to his drink, take a sip, and move his body slightly to continue watching her as she went around the room.

It was then that he caught a glimpse of Goose in his periphery, and the other man’s expression was one of pure mischief. “I’ll be your wingman, no worries!” Realizing his unintentional pun, Goose snorted. “Ha. _Wingman_.”

“Don’t you dare, scag.” But Goose was already flagging Jess down as she came back behind the bar with a bin full of dirties.

“Miss Jess, I do believe we’ve done you the dishonor of not properly introducing ourselves. Bad form on our part. Jim Goose of the MFP, and my surly cohort goes by Max.”

She smiled at him again, and Max wished to God that he could just crawl under the bar and hide without anyone noticing. “Max? Just Max?”

“Don’t ask him what his last name is. Trust me.”

She laughed. “Okay then. But no more ‘miss’ or’ ma’am’ from either of you! It’s just Jess, or Jessie.”

While the other patrons began to say their goodbyes and file out into the balmy night, Max and Goose stayed. Jess poured them two more glasses, and she finally accepted the money that Max insisted she have. When the last of the regulars had wobbled out, Jess no longer had to be the doting barkeep. She spoke to the men as if she’d known them for years, and Max realized that he felt something along the same lines when he looked at her. That he’d known this woman far longer than the mere forty-five minutes since they had entered the bar.

“Be level with me, boys. How bad are the roads?”

The officers shared a glance, agreeing with a look that Jessie was someone they could absolutely be truthful with. “They’re rough.”

She frowned, taking up a sudsy glass and tucking it under the counter for later washing. “A lot of the folks here have stopped trying to get out of town. The mail doesn’t come anymore, and we’ve only got a retired army doctor on hand if things go wrong. It’s a wonder we still got beer and cigs to sell.”

“I was just gonna ask,” Goose piped in. “There’s a lot of smoke in the air here. I haven’t been able to find lights anywhere, s’why I had to quit.”

“And you ain’t gonna start the habit up again,” Max chided. Goose snarked at him, moving his hand in an open-close gesture, an immature _blah blah blah_ motion. He stood and drained the dregs at the bottom of his glass, then gave Jess a flourished bow.

“It was a pleasure, Miss Jessie! But alas, this bird need his beauty sleep. Maxie, I’ll be in the car.” He gave Max one final wink, then sauntered to the exit and ventured out into the night, being careful to not let the door slam.

So then they were two, the officer and the bartender. Jessie’s final duty of the night was to pour a drink for herself and come around to take up Goose’s seat beside Max. He noticed, now that she was sitting so close, that her eyes were the same chestnut brown that his mother’s had been.

“So. Max, whose last name I don’t want to know. What do you like?”

In that instant, Max Rockatansky, barely 20 years old and feeling the bulk of his MFP jacket around him like the weight of the world, had a brief glimpse of the future. It was fleeting, but he liked what he saw, and he decided that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he made the effort to push himself along in a positive direction.

“I like to drive.”

\---

There were many things that Max missed.

Food that was meant to be food was one of them. When the shops and diners went down, so did bread and coffee and bacon. Once he’d found a roadkill wallaby and eagerly dug into it. Of course, he had found a safe place to camp and built a small fire to cook up what remained of the meat that hadn’t gone rancid. He wouldn’t eat it raw like that, he wasn’t an animal.

He’d scrapped the Interceptor’s radio long ago, both to get the MFP off his trail and make the car lighter, faster. It always had to be faster, more efficient. Of course, there was no more MFP anymore. Everyone at the Broken Hill headquarters was either dead or roadscum by now. Everyone on Broken Hill was dead in general. The area had been one of the first to go under when the riots started up again, the fourth wave of a conflict over fuel that had resulted in more deaths than the government collapse as a whole. The Oil Wars, he’d heard some call them. Gangs of hundreds running down anyone who fled, slaying and wrecking all for the sake of guzzoline, the smoky hybrid fuel that had lit up the world.

Max wasn’t an onlooker in the Oil Wars. He reckoned he was an old hand at it by this point, as he had done his fair share of running crazies off the road to have at their tanks. Just a trickle, just a cup, would keep the Interceptor rolling just a bit longer.

The Interceptor was a beast. He wasn’t sure what they’d done to it in the basement of MFP headquarters, how those mechanics had put such ferocity into a V8. And it wasn’t just the engine, the whole car was possessed. Max didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits, but if he did, he’d have sworn that there was something supernatural working its way through the wiring and gears and wheels of that thing.

Max missed people who weren’t insane. He remembered them, but only slightly, only where his memory went round at the corners. Their faces were cloudy, muddled. He remembered their names, who they had been. But they were dead, and the sentimentality didn’t hurt like it should have. They had no room in his life now. There were still people though, of course. They were either lucky or ruthless, but they were alive while the rest of the world had gone down the tubes. Max did his part to avoid people in general, only breaking that rule when he needed to raid.

They called him Road Warrior. The title made his gullet cinch, like a noose being tightened around his neck. Driver. Wheel Jockey. Feral. _Road Warrior_.

He was none of those things. He was a man, nothing more. The roadkill needed something to believe in, but Max refused to be that belief. He would not be a hero. He would not become attached.

\---

“Around the corner, that’s the way out.”

The tunnels felt like they’d gone on forever, but Max was certain he knew where they were now. Smokedog had been shot in the hip, but they were able to staunch the bleeding and wrap it fast enough to make the wound non-fatal. Max carried the man’s weight on his left side, while his kids, a boy and a girl whose names Max had never caught, stuck close to their father’s right. A turn in the tunnel confirmed Max’s suspicion, as the light of the torch he held in his free hand bounced and flickered over a pair of heavy metal doors that tipped up at a slight angle.

“Past the doors?”

“Mm.”

The kids ran ahead of them, both eager to make it outside before the other. Smokedog strained, and Max wobbled with the motion, trying to keep the man steady.

“Let go a’ me, I’m fine, I’m fine.” He reluctantly released his grip, watching as the man hobbled over to his children, the three of them giving the doors a shove. They swung outward, protesting noisily with the effort, and genuine sunlight spilled into the tunnel, blinding them all for an instant.

The kids cheered and dashed out into what was left of the day, and Smokedog turned back to regard the man who had helped them. Max could see the man’s eyes shine. “Y’ saved us today, Road Warrior. You’re good man.” Max said nothing, and Smokedog turned and limped outside without another word.

There was a slight incline that one had to climb to get up and out, and as he trekked it, Max noticed several things. First, as his eyes adjusted to the daylight, he could see the Interceptor. It was right where he’d left it, just a few meters away, parked in a stand of scrub brush to hide it from prying eyes. Smokedog’s kids were standing by the car, waving. To himself or their father he couldn’t say. And, just as he was about to pull himself out of the tunnels and leave this latest misadventure behind him, Max saw the glimmer.

The tunnels were part of a system that ran below the floor of a dry valley basin. The entrance doors themselves were set into the side of a stone monolith, one of hundreds of columns of rock in the basin that had been shaped by weather and erosion for millions of years. Despite this, the horizon could still be seen where Max stood. Pasts the columns, it stretched and ran for miles and miles. The sun was setting behind them, throwing shadows in the direction he was looking, and Max noticed how the glimmer on the horizon seemed to be getting thicker and thicker, eating up the shadows as it bore down on them. Its speed was enough to make Max’s mind reel, and he screamed something to Smokedog and the kids. But by then it was too late.

The sound was so loud that it snatched the words from Max’s mouth, and as the glimmer became a beam of solid, retina-burning light, it was strong enough to tear his feet away from the ground and send him careening back down the tunnel. Everything was light, everything was fluorescence and burning and pain, his flesh was burning, everything was on fire. And then there was nothing.

Max’s world was still for a very long time. He didn’t know who he was, didn’t know how to react to the phenomenon of actually existing. He was alive, but in what capacity? Gradually he realized that he had a body, a body with a head and limbs and functioning organs. He should try to use them.

His fingers wiggled when he willed them to, and he could feel his legs, though one of them was considerably stiffer than the other. He inhaled. The scent of soil, of dampness. He was laying on his front in the dirt. His mind tried to comprehend how he had gotten into this situation, but it felt like his brain had been separated down the middle lengthwise. He did his best to try and push the two halves together, but they couldn’t stick back the way he wanted them to. It felt like a conversation between two strangers instead of two sides of his own mind.

**_Do you remember anything?_ **

_…Sound. I remember the car._

**_That’s good. Were you alone?_ **

_No. Family. There was a family._

**_Do you remember their names?_ **

_I remember my name._

**_What’s that?_ **

_Max. We’re Max. No,_ I’m _Max. My name is Max._

And with that, a needle and thread was drawn and pulled between the two halves of his brain, and Max was a single person once again. Blips of memory began to come back to him behind his eyelids; the kids, their father, car. Dusk, shadows, light, burning, dying. They had died, all of them.

His arms shook with the effort it took to lift himself onto his knees. At this point Max realized that his clothes were intact, a shaky pat-down revealing that he still possessed his boots and pants and knee brace and jacket. His jacket was very important, he was glad he hadn’t lost that.

The effort it took for him to open his eyes was monumental, and when he was granted the same darkness that lived behind his eyelids, Max thought for a terrifying moment that he had gone blind. But two more blips of memory reminded him that he was in the tunnels at the bottom of the basin, and there should be some doors somewhere that would let in a little light. His ears were the next things to be tested, and the tongue-click Max produced was louder than a gunshot in the confined space. His ears stung and he clapped his hands to the side of his head, but not before registering that the echo coming from his left wobbled and bounced back faster than the echo that traveled down the opposite way.

Walking was difficult, but Max managed. He staggered, legs feeling like they hadn’t been used for anything up until this. His hands found the double doors, and he let himself slump against them for a long moment, already exhausted. Once certain that he could handle this small chore, Max found the seam, placed a hand on each door, and pushed.

They wouldn’t budge.

Again he tried, planting his feet this time. Nothing. His muscles felt loose and watery, like they didn’t have any tone to them at all. One more time he tried, pushing with his shoulders, and Max was shocked at the hair-wide strand of light that bloomed along the seam. Confirming his suspicion that, no, he hadn’t gone blind. There was something blocking the doors, he could feel that now. Too tired to keep pushing, Max reluctantly let the full weight of whatever it was settle back onto them, and the total dark came rushing back.

 _Matches_.

He kept a tattered box of old matches in his trouser band, and very carefully he unrolled it and slid the delicate little parcel apart. It wouldn’t do if he spilled them in the pitch dark, he had to be careful. Oh so carefully, he extracted a match, found the business end, and struck it against the doors. It combusted instantly, sputtering, the odor sharp and pungent. Max stuck the non-flammable tip between his teeth, tucking the box away and bracing himself against the doors once again. As little light as the match gave off, it kept the dark far enough away. He rotated his wrists, shaking his arms and legs to try and work some energy into them.

He started off with a slight shove. Then a harder one, then a harder one. As the ferocity of the pushes increased, Max learned that what was blocking the doors was probably balanced in a way that would make it easy to roll over. He just needed to keep at it. With his shoulder set against the door for long enough, Max felt the chill of the world outside seep past his jacket. _It’s cold. Must be night._

Memories came back to him, memories of being a boy and cowering in the cellar with his mother, listening to the sounds of their house being razed to the ground by crazies. Déjà vu of the worst kind. He shoved, and with every shove the crack of light got wider and wider. Wide enough that a gust blown between the doors snuffed out the match, but it didn’t really matter, the object was nearly loose. He gritted his teeth, chomping through the match and shoving with an almost crazed fervor.

_Almost there, push, push-_

The obstruction slid free, the doors blew outward, and Max tumbled over, instinctively turning to avoid hurting his knee. His hips took the brunt of the fall, flexing in a way that would have made him scream if he hadn’t been enrapt with what had happened to the world.

It was snowing. Max had never experienced snow, only seen it in books or on TV as a kid. There was no wind to whip the individual flakes into a frenzy, and so the sight of them almost hanging in the air, hardly wobbling, was unnerving. Hell, the sight of snow at all was unnerving. It covered the ground in powdery little hills, measuring up to his ankles as he forced himself to stand up. As he brushed it off his shoulders, he realized that it wasn’t snow at all, not really. More like… ash. Wet, noxious ash. Max had the feeling that it should have been night, but the sickly looking clouds that blotted out the sky gave off a light of their own; lightning bolts ran through the thick banks incessantly, leaving enough residual light behind to give the illusion that it was day. There was no sound, not from the snow, not from the clouds. It was strange. It was alien. It was wrong.

The Interceptor had been the object that had blocked the tunnel doors, flipped onto its top during the blast and sealing him inside, essentially saving his life. He’d been right that it hadn’t been balanced very well, and was grateful that he’d shoved it back onto its tires. Max checked the interior; the upholstery was gone, cooked to a crisp. Surprisingly the guzzoline in the tanks hadn’t evaporated, and Max pondered this.

_Everything organic. Gone._

It was then that Max remembered Smokedog and the kids. He swung about, turning in a circle, seeking out any shape, any indication that they had survived. Nothing. There were the pillars, and the snow, and the silence. Nothing. Not even bones.

 _You were lucky,_ his mind droned. _You survived. They didn’t. They were weak._ But lucky in what aspect? What would he do now? He’d just lived through the ending of the world… What came next?

Max took shelter inside the Interceptor, huddling behind the wheel with his legs drawn close. It was cold, but at least he was out of the ash. He wondered if he should back the car into the tunnel, but thought better of it. Once again the memory of the cellar and his childhood came back to him, and he shrugged it off and settled into his jacket, wanting to sleep. He was utterly exhausted, and despite all that had happened it seemed like sleep would be possible. His eyelids drooped, and the core of his body became warm and relaxed. He would sleep, and he’d get back to surviving when he woke.

_“Max.”_

The voice shocked him out of his stupor in a way a gunshot would, his weariness ripped away from him in a heartbeat. That voice, he recognized it. The meat of his shoulders spasmed, the hairs along his arms standing up on end. He leaned out of the window and stared out onto the horizon, squinting, trying to make out a shape, a figure. No one, he was still alone. But… That had been Smokedog’s voice, hadn’t it?

_“Max.”_

Behind him. He whirled in his seat, fist raised, ready to defend himself. The back of the car was empty.

Sleep would not come tonight, and Max recalled that he had never actually told Smokedog his name.

\---

Max lost track of how old he was.

It wasn’t that he didn’t care anymore (which he didn’t), he just genuinely didn’t know. He had survived the Fall of the world, yes, but he’d walked away a changed man. He felt no older than he had that day, and during his scavengings, when he caught a glimpse of himself in a cracked mirror or other bit of reflective surface, he hadn’t aged a single day. Forever caught in his mid-thirties.

This would have been all well and fine if the world hadn’t ended a lifetime ago.

In his ramblings Max met people who remembered the old world, when clear water lay on the surface, when everything was clean and green. These people were ragged, worn by the days; their faces sallow and wrinkled, limbs atrophied and bodies wracked with the troubles of age. They called him ‘boy’, or ‘son’, as if he never had the pleasure of knowing what the world had been like before the waters had receded. But Max didn’t want to waste the energy in trying to correct them. Didn’t bother telling them that he’d spent his childhood out in the bush, barefoot, happily sloshing through puddles and being so in love with the fecundity of the earth that it had made him cry.

The voices bothered him more that his lack of age did. People he’d forgotten who had come back to haunt him, harass him, blame him for what had happened. Smokedog, his mother. Jessie, Goose. The girl. Others. They crooned at Max, pointing out his faults, his failures. Most times he didn’t lash out at them, but simply let them speak their words of guilt and shame. He’d rationed that they couldn’t harm him, they weren’t a danger to him like the crazies and the desert rats were. Let them whisper.

He had to wonder, though. Insanity, as it had been for his entire life, was the norm. He hadn’t known a world any different, and had fought to keep himself from sliding into the same morass of depravity that everyone else had. But if he was so much more different than everyone else… Was he the abnormal one? Was _he_ the one who had gone mad?

The answer would have had him balance morals and the like, so he didn’t linger on the prospect of it for long. He was a Road Warrior after all, wasn’t he? The title used to make him want to choke. But now he had taken a knife to the noose, letting it slide from his shoulders. He would not choke. He would not linger. He’d survive, as he’d always done.

He let his hair grow long and his throat scratchy. He had no one to talk to save the Interceptor, why bother speaking? The Oil Wars had ended long ago, and with the spread of the Big Nothing came the Water Wars. The crazies became more ruthless, thirstier, and Max found that he had to adapt if he wanted to drink.

Like you do.

\---

He was airborne… how had that happened?

The side of the Interceptor collided with the ground in a manner that shook Max to the core. Something keen and sharp flew past, narrowly missing his face, and his mouth welled up with blood from where he’d chomped down on the inside of his cheek. The car rolled, squealing, and Max’s vision was filled with metal and sand and ruin as he flopped around the interior like a loose pebble in a boot. Then everything began to settle, and Max’s instinct told him to _get out, get out now._

He found an opening, most likely a window, and squirmed out, gasping, letting the blood in his mouth soak his beard. Max kicked away from the car, crawling. Everything was hot and bright and dusty, and then there was a boot on his back, pushing him to the ground, and the unmistakable sound of a large gun cocking.

“You ain’t going nowhere, scum.”

The voice wasn’t inside his head. That was comforting, in a way. Others came, and they strapped the Interceptor up to a tow truck and chained him behind it, yanking him along. The sun was setting, casting the desert in shades of apricot and violet, and, in the distance, above the shrieking of the crazies and the combined growl of their engines, Max thought he could hear drums.

And water.


End file.
